The Importance of a Woman's Role in Emergency Medicine

At three o'clock in the morning, most people are asleep. I, with three and a half hours to go before I have to get up for work, am haphazardly throwing on clothes before I race out the door. Tones are pulsing from my radio and you can sense the tension in the dispatcher's voice, "...10-50, at least two PI's..." I'm nearly blinded as my emergency light bounces off the rain and fog, windshield wipers squeak back and forth, and my voice croaks from sleep as I radio in to dispatch that I am enroute to the scene. The roads are eerily empty and I arrive on scene sooner than I had really wanted to. Wind burns my face as I make my way, cautiously, to the crumpled vehicle. I'm struck by the severity of the situation...a car, or what should have been a car, balances precariously on its roof over a shallow ditch, a light pole is literally shattered in half, and a body lies, unmoving, 15 feet away. And so, my day begins.

I have been a volunteer rescuer for over three years, since I was nineteen. When I first began in 1999, I was unprepared for the role that emergency medicine and rescue would play in my life. Now, it has become a very integral part of me, of who I have become. I have learned that the humanities are about life and living, growth and transformation, and the people who were the motivating factors for change. I have experienced a more profound closeness to people, through my rescue work, than I had ever really noticed before.

From ambulance driving to staging, diabetics to overdoses, or gunshots and knife attacks, I can handle it all. However, there are a few who feel as though I can't, or at least, shouldn't. "The hostility comes from within....most male fire-fighters today are the 'show-me' kind." (Firefighter, 1995). Today, the fire and rescue community is still largely male dominated, but that hasn't hampered the rise of female participants. Feminism and women's suffrage were quite on my mind during a Swift-Water Rescue Training (SRT) class that I attended during the semester. It was terrifying to watch the videos of rescuers drowning or being swept away, to learn about the strength of the currents and their lethal damage to people, but, the most unnerving experience of all was the mixed support I received from my fellow male rescuers. In a group of 26, with only four being females, I did receive a large amount of encouragement, but there were a few who thought that protecting me from the extreme elements of nature would help me handle my emotional experience.

These were the guys who purposely made it easier for me to rescue them during specific scenarios, "How grossly do they insult us who thus advise us only to render ourselves gentle, domestic brutes!" (Vindication, 174). There were also a few who refused to interact with me at all until I proved that I was capable of 'keeping up' with them. For the mile swim, I jumped into the 32-degree water with my PFD (Personal Flotation Device), got into position to float down the winding river, and waved to the rescuers ahead and behind me. Teeth chattering, I made my way, miserably, along until a large orange raft crossed my path. The children giggled as they tried to maneuver out of the way and in the process, ran over me. Desperately, I turned to move away from them and, still floating at a speed of over 5 mph, I ran smack into the meanest rock I had ever seen. Wave after wave crashed into my face and coughing, literally drowning in my own gasps for air, I raised my hand for help. Only one man called to me, trying, himself, to get past the rocks, but he was too far back. No one else came. When I finally made it to shore, still gagging and spitting, I demanded to know why the rescuer ahead of me ignored my situation. He replied, "A girl has to learn to do things on her own."

It hasn't been just fellow rescuers who are "iffy" about females in the field. Patients, too, often express their indignation at a woman working on them in the back of the unit. My mother, Cynthia Snow, is an Emergency Medical Technician-Intermediate (EMT-I) who laughingly recalled "an old codger who just couldn't believe I was the one working on him." She stated that every time she attempted to perform an intervention, such as setting up an IV, the patient bellowed that she wasn't qualified to do that, she would surely mess it up, "women always do..." (Cynthia, Interview), and how dare she hurt him. If it hadn't been for women like Virginia Woolf, Mary Wollstonecraft, or Olympie de Gouges, who fought to ensure the equal rights of all women everywhere, I may not be working on an ambulance today and I certainly would not have been able to complete the required education.

With the rise of modernism, there arose a deep uncertainty of being. Individuals had lost their sense of "confidence in the eternal truths" (Humanistic 6, 70). They sought to find answers, or solace, in their quest for truth and meaning. In the rescue field, there is often a fear of the unknown and a constant search for something more substantial in life. Emily Dickinson, a poet of the modernist period, stressed her own ambiguity, questioning death just as I often have,

To know just how He suffered - would be dear -

To know if any human eyes were near

To whom He could entrust His wavering gaze -

Until it settles broad - on Paradise - (1-4 Complete)

Why are we here? What is our purpose before death? How do we manage with the life given to us? This curiousness of our existence and our relationship with a higher being reminds me, too, of the Romantic Period, particularly Frankenstein, "Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connexion..." (Frankenstein, 27). Looking back, I see how young and naïve I was when I first began running rescue. My expectations were so...childish. I can still recall my first code. Our unit arrived on scene and I just stood there, at a complete and utter loss. That man, lying there on the dark pavement, didn't look anything like the dead guys on television. He was really dead. His feet, his lips, his fingers, began to take on a peculiar shade of blue that I had never seen before. There is a feeling, a tense weight, in the air that seemed to slow everything down. His wife, I remember, stood unmoving in shock behind the car, staring with unseeing eyes as life seeped away from the man she loved. Was he, in fact, liberated from all that he had endured in his lifetime? I wondered if his soul had really left his body,

Groped up, to see if God was there -

Groped backward at Himself

Caressed a Trigger absently

And wandered out of Life. (6-9, Complete)

The imagery used by the great poets, the questions asked by the old philosophers, and the emotions felt by the passionate writers are all beautiful expressions that I see in everything I do. Life becomes more potent when you face death and yet, there is still the fear of alienation without the possibility of liberation.

How can you understand war and its terror unless you experience it first hand? I have never seen battle, but I recently met an old man, the same age as my great-grandmother. He seemed lonely and greatly older, in spirit, than his age should have allowed him. He could barely lift his legs, but his eyes held deep stories that may never be fully remembered. His hands, which must have once been strong, were gone and he was unable to sign the insurance documentation. I wondered if his family was as sad as I that his words slurred together as he talked. We talked on our trip to the hospital and he told me he fought in the war, World War II, that is, and yet, he couldn't remember his daughter's name and didn't know the day's date. But, he remembered the war, the sounds, the smells, and the smoke... "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through the sludge, -" (Humanistic 6, 52). I think of that man, his experiences, and wonder what his life was like when he came home. I contemplate what his family went through and I speculate as to whether he is alive today.

On the same lines as World War II, America's War on Terrorism invades my mind. It has become a major issue in the fire/rescue world, as we attend terrorism response training, biological and chemical weapon training, statewide emergency response training, and we wait on word of the controversial smallpox vaccine for medical workers. We are under a great pressure from this new kind of war and I can see its totalitarian effects invading the tiny chasms of rescue life. It feels as though everyone is forced into the total way of thinking. It's all or nothing. You are either with us or against us.

I think of so many things, while working the back of the ambulance, in relation to humanities. I reflect on Galileo and his thoughtful inventions, as well as the Industrial Revolution, which motivated the advancement of life-saving technology that we use today. With every rescue call, I face the complexities of human nature and I imagine what Locke or Hobbes would say. Karl Marx's theories, too, have hit close to home as I feel the sense of alienation in the routinization of my work.

The field of rescue is a complex, diverse occupation. I am often asked how I can possibly do it. Who knows why we do what we do? Nevertheless, I believe everyone should have the opportunity to run at least one rescue call in their life. The unique, life-altering experience brings you closer to living, closer to history, and more importantly, closer to people.

Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson

Little, Brown, & Company: Boston, 1960

Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition. Book 6. 4^th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998

Snow, Cynthia. Personal Interview. 1 October 2002

Soteropoulos, Jacqueline. "Woman Fired Up To Be A Firefighter." The Tampa Tribune.

29 May 1995: n. pag.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." The Asheville Reader - The Modern World. Ed. Katz, Moseley, et al. Ashville, NC: Pegasus Press, 1999. 173-187

Bibliography

Barney, Sandra Lee. Authorized to Heal: Gender, Class, & The Transformation of Medicine in Appalachia, 1880 - 1930.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000

Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson

Little, Brown, & Company: Boston, 1960

Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition. Book 4. 4^th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002

Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition. Book 6. 4^th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002

Kafka, Franz. The Complete Stories. Ed. Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken Books, 1971

Katz, Moseley, et al., ed. The Asheville Reader - The Modern World.

Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 1999

Lutzker, Edythe. Women Gain a Place in Medicine. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969

Marx, Karl. On Society and Social Change. Ed. Neil J. Smelser. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1973

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998

Snow, Cynthia. Personal Interview. 1 October 2002

Soteropoulos, Jacqueline. "Woman Fired Up To Be A Firefighter." The Tampa Tribune.

29 May 1995: n. pag.